Tim Southee: Taming The Complicated Art Of Simple Swing Bowling

“All that practice, all that warmup, all that effort, he can’t believe it himself. No ball, yes. No ball, six. No ball, free hit.”

These were the words of former English cricket captain Nasser Hussain when New Zealand pacer Tim Southee tried to bowl a yorker to Chris Gayle in a Super Over against West Indies in the 2012 World Cup.

Despite getting hit for a six, Southee went on to bowl five more yorkers on the trot.

While Gayle did not move around the crease, Marlon Samuels did. Still, it did not deter Southee’s focus and accuracy. At last, Samuels had to shuffle to execute his winning six.

In another match in that tournament, Mahela Jayawardene would move to the seventh stump (from the leg side), and Southee would still hit the same length while being forced to change his line in the last fraction of a second.

Southee was four years into his international cricket career by then and was considered a regular in New Zealand's squad. Eighteen wickets at an average of 17.33 in the 2011 World Cup — in a team that had Shane Bond — was his best achievement to date.

The cricketing world was trying to figure him out since, despite not having an X-factor delivery in his repertoire, he picked up wickets regularly.

Southee’s bowling did not have aerial movement like Dale Steyn did. He was not quick through the air like Mitchell Johnson was. He did not generate large lateral movements with bounce like Brett Lee. He did not possess the snakish swing of James Anderson or Shane Bond. Neither was he a left-armer, like his partner in crime, Trent Boult.

The 2012 World Cup turned out to be a breakthrough tournament for him in white-ball cricket, not because he performed well but because he displayed great resilience to hit yorkers when no one else relied on them, save for Lasith Malinga.

After this tournament, Bond was appointed the Kiwi bowling coach, while Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas was brought in as an adviser for a tour. Bond was known for control over his swing at extreme pace, while Vaas had the uncanny ability to swing the ball just enough to take the edge.

Vaas probably passed on his other skill of setting a batsman up by following through on a bowling plan for overs at a time and sometimes all through a session. While Vaas did it by using angles, Southee learnt to do it by improving his inswinger, though it was not his stock delivery.

Between August 2012 and November 2021, Southee was the second-most prolific bowler in world cricket. In 63 Tests, he grabbed 280 wickets at a paltry average of 25.45 and a strike rate of 53.3. Only Ashwin, who retired just a day after Southee, claimed more wickets, though with a poorer average and strike rate.

The best of Southee had a bit of Bond, Vaas, and Anderson in him. Watching them and many other proponents from close quarters, Southee developed an outswinger that only he could bowl.

He would generally come over the wicket and bowl between the fourth and the sixth stump line. Southee’s use of the crease was such that the natural angle for a batsman (right-handed) would be one of the ball coming in.

In that case, if, after pitching, the ball just held its line, it would feel like an outswinger to the batsman. English batsman Ian Bell’s dismissal during Southee’s famous seven-wicket haul against England in the 2015 World Cup is one of the most famous examples of this bowling trickery.

If the straighter one became an outswinger, the actual outswinger turned even more lethal.

Southee claimed very many wickets off these deliveries. The modes of dismissal off his bowling would largely be either bowled or edged to the first or second slip. On cloudy days, Southee would be able to zip it even more so that the edges would carry to gully.

What made Southee tick was his ability to find new ways to improve his game without losing his stock weapon. While Siddle succeeded in bringing the ball back in with the help of a strong arm and angles, Southee managed to do it through the unconventional method of gripping the ball through a three-quarter seam position.

Kiwi senior Kyle Mills gets credit for passing on this skillset to Southee.

Southee's inswingers were more like fast off-cutters, which he used sparingly and as a surprise weapon after setting up the batsman.

Unlike Siddle, Southee did not focus on becoming an out-and-out Test bowler, one who could bowl all day without tiring. This helped him add more cutters to his armoury, which he used in both white-ball and red-ball cricket.

Boult is unofficially retired, and now Southee has hung up his boots. Southee retired as the second-highest wicket-taker for Kiwis in Tests and the highest wicket-taker across formats. Richard Hadlee, the man ahead of Southee in the Test wickets tally, was the one who accelerated Southee's career by pulling him into Test cricket during the crucial developmental stage.

Southee was initially compared with Glenn McGrath. Towards the end, he did the comparison justice by holding on to a line and keeping things simple.